She whines a little and bucks up as I go slow and deep. I keep the rhythm that way for quite a while, feeling the heat build between us. I could swear someone had started a fire in this bed.
“Do you feel that, Kara. Do you feel how hot I am for you?”
“Cole, I’m on fire for you. Keep doing it just like that.”
I try to keep it slow, at least at first, but Kara’s nails rake down my back and she wraps her legs around me and that isthe end of that. I let go, driving into her, slow at first but then deeper, harder, the sound of our bodies colliding.
I want to make her come again, want to make her shake with it. So I reach down and rub her clit as I thrust into her, feel her get tighter, wetter, feel her start to lose control.
Kara cries out with a force that makes me want to fuck her until neither of us can remember the last time we felt this alive.
She bites my shoulder, hard enough to make me grunt, and digs her heels into my back as she shakes apart quickly, coming so hard she nearly sobs. Her body pulses around me, and I follow her over the edge, driving deep once more as her name tears out of me. I don’t let up, not until she’s grabbing my shoulders and pushing me away, panting, her whole body trembling.
For several seconds, I can do nothing but hold myself above her and breathe. Then I ease away, walking into the bath and returning with a warm wash cloth. Kara watches me clean her gently, her expression softer than anything I have seen from her yet.
When I lie beside her, she curls into me as if she has always belonged there.
“That wasnota terrible idea,” she murmurs.
“No.” I brush damp hair from her cheek. “The terrible idea would be missing out on how good it could be.”
Her eyes meet mine. “I feel safe with you, Cole. Even with everything that has happened, I feel instantly at home with you.”
I pull her closer, my heart feeling heavy with her words. But an old habit tugs my attention toward the floor. My phone is still turned off. I never turn it off while I am on assignment. I should not have tonight. But for a little while, I wanted nothing outside this room to reach us.
“I have to turn my phone back on,” I say. “I do not want you to think I am being crass.”
“Cole, Rafi has my phone for forensic examination. I understand.”
I reach down, find my phone among our clothes, and hold the power button until the screen lights. I brace myself while it reconnects.
No missed calls. No messages.
I let out a breath and place the phone on the nightstand with the volume turned high, and draw Kara back against me.
“All clear?” she asks.
“For now.” I kiss the top of her head. “Go to sleep.”
She tucks herself closer. Within minutes, her breathing evens out against my chest, and mine follows.
For the first time in several nights, sleep finds us before fear does.
Chapter 18
Cole
The problem with finally touching Kara is that it does not make me less careful. It makes me worse.
Every sound outside the cottage sharpens. Every passing tire on the crushed-shell lane becomes a possible approach. Every shadow beyond the marsh grass looks like a place someone could stand too long and watch the windows.
Before Kara, protection was a discipline. Now it feels like hunger with a purpose. That is dangerous.
I know it, and still when she moves quietly through the bedroom behind me, when I hear the rustle of fabric and the soft pull of a drawer, my body tracks her without permission. She is safe. She is inside. The curtains are closed. The locks are checked. Eli has a unit rotating past the inn every fifteen minutes, and Sloane has this cottage buried under enough false paperwork to bore a stalker to death.
None of it feels like enough.
My phone vibrates on the table. I pick it up. Sloane has sent a message.
